First Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski got seemingly bent out of shape when President Obama’s N.C.A.A. bracket comments stepped all over Duke.
By Viv Bernstein
Duke is coming off an Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship and arrives at the N.C.A.A. Tournament as a No. 2 seed. But apparently, at least one influential fan isn’t convinced the Blue Devils are prime contenders.
“Somebody said we’re not in President Obama’s Final Four,’’ coach Mike Krzyzewski said in a lighthearted moment Wednesday as Duke prepared to face Binghamton in an East Regional first-round game in Greensboro, N.C. “As much as I respect what he’s doing, really the economy is something he should focus on more than the brackets.’’
Now North Carolina head coach Roy Williams seems perturbed by the pressure Obama seemed to put on the Tar Heels with his comments directed at them.
Both coaches seem shaken by the presidential attention.
But, don’t the coaches realize that when it comes to N.C.A.A. basketball President Obama is no different from any other ordinary, regular, smack-talking fan with a bracket at stake?
The coaches, and America, ought to look at this as a wonderful thing. If the president always sat behind closed doors and never showed his face, never showed his human side, then we’d be hearing a chorus of boos calling for his support of “regular stuff” like March Madness, and accusations that he hides in an ivory tower.
I prefer he’s out here with the rest of us, caring about the things we care about, and not faking it.
Any other guy on the street who’s a fan would do the same thing — call it like it is, or how he sees it, anyway. It’s true that the Pac-10 was weak this year. It’s true that U.N.C. faked the funk last year. It’s true that Duke was off this year.
Coaches, you’re not intimidated, are you? If so, just block it out. So what if he’s the President of the United States.
After all, we have to block out your product endorsements even though you run the top basketball programs in the country, right? For some consumers, that’s very intimidating. Well, maybe this is a stretch, but you get the point.
Here is coverage by the New York Times of Willaims’ response:
GREENSBORO, N.C. — President Barack Obama took a break from campaigning last spring to play some pick-up basketball with North Carolina. Now, President Obama has picked the Tar Heels to win the N.C.A.A. championship.
How’s that for pressure?
“You know, I love the president,” Coach Roy Williams said Thursday after the Tar Heels beat Radford, 101-58, in the first round of the South Regional at Greensboro Coliseum. “I really, really like President Obama.
“I think it’s great that he’s a sports fan and goes through the bracket and the whole bit like that. But frankly, he’s got some more important things to worry about than the N.C.A.A. tournament. But I still love the fact that he’s willing to be involved.”
Maybe President Obama is merely returning a kindness after the Tar Heels opted not to hammer him on the court. Even Tyler Hansbrough, known for his physical play, laid back.
“When he played pick-up with our guys, nobody blocked his shot and everybody passed him the ball, and everybody set screens for him, wanted to let him score,” Williams said. “So it’s payback for us being so nice to him. And he drove to the basket one time and Tyler didn’t take his head off. So that was good.”
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